Don’t worry–it doesn’t contain actual dirt.

Need a little something to spice up your home coffee routine? Just as dalgona whipped coffee took the Japanese Internet by storm last year, a second new DIY coffee trend born in South Korea is currently making the rounds which is called “dirty coffee.”

Before you write that off as sounding extremely unappetizing, recognize that the “dirty” in its name is referring to a certain level of artistic messiness. It’s also extremely simple to make–just whip up some fresh cream, place a generous dollop on a cup of coffee, and adorn it with your toppings of choice. Not anything earth-shatteringly complex, but it’s a fun twist on a mundane beverage.

To test it out for ourselves, we picked up some fresh cream, chocolate, and roasted nuts at the local convenience store.

You can use any kind of coffee for the base, whether instant or brewed. Just make sure that you rest your cup on a saucer or a small plate for reasons that will become apparent very soon. The only step in crafting the beverage that takes a little manpower is whipping the cream–but that’s what hand mixers are for!

It took us about 7-8 minutes to get enough volume for the type of whipped cream that we wanted. After that, all we had to do was arrange everything as messily or as artistically–or some combination of the two–as possible. In particular, we weren’t shy about letting the whipped cream and toppings cascade over the side of our cup to spill onto the saucer underneath.

We topped the first dirty coffee we made with pieces of shaved chocolate and chocolate chip cookies.

We topped the second one with roasted almonds, maple syrup walnuts, and a dusting of cinnamon.

Of course, with so many sweet and sugary toppings, dirty coffee is really more of a dessert pretending to be a coffee than a beverage. It’s also really hard to drink naturally without using a spoon.

Acknowledging those things, both of our creations turned out delicious. We’d love to experiment with more flavors and different kinds of toppings. Maybe we can try making a Pokémon-themed version next with these new crackers from Ottotto.

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